No More Learning

These planning agencies, and the various factories
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? ECOHOMIC AHD CULTURAL PROGRESS
and collective farms throughout the land, carefully con-
sider the proposed estimates with special attention to
those figures that concern them. Then, in the light of
their own experience, they make fresh suggestions and
counter-plans, returning the revised drafts to the central
Planning Committee. After receiving all available in-
formation and criticism regarding the preliminary sched-
ules, including the reactions of the various government
Ministries, the Planning Committee proceeds to draw up
the final Plan for presentation to the Council of Minis-
ters (or Cabinet), to the Communist Party and to the
Supreme Soviet. These three bodies must all pass on the
Five-Year Plan. It is to be remembered that the State
Planning Committee, in spite of its enormous importance
and influence, remains in the last analysis an expert ad-
visory board whose recommendations must be ratified by
the higher political authorities.
Along with the Five-Year Plan as a whole the Plan-
ning Committee also submits for ratification the control
figures for the first year of the Plan. In fact, every Jan-
uary the Committee submits a one-year plan to cover
the current year. This must of course fit into the general
outlines of the Five-Year Plan, but need not agree exactly
with the original figures of the Plan. The Committee's
obligation annually to decide upon a one-year schedule
gives it the invaluable opportunity of revising the Five-
Year Plan itself in the face of changing circumstances.
Furthermore, the Committee divides the yearly plan into
quarters and at the beginning of each quarter re-exam-
ines the estimates for the next three months. In short,
social-economic planning is carried out on the principle
of intelligent flexibility and not on that of unbending,
unalterable dogma.
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
It is perfectly obvious that a Planning Committee
composed of the wisest men in the world would be bound
to make some mistakes, particularly when country-wide,
long-range planning is being tried for the first time in
human history. Moreover, there exist certain factors
which the most flawless technique of planning cannot
precisely anticipate: weather conditions, for example,
affecting the fortunes of crops throughout the country;
new inventions and new discoveries of mineral wealth,
affecting the progress of industry and agriculture; the
movement of world prices, affecting payments for needed
imports; and the external threat of military aggression,
affecting both the productive needs and the psychology
of the people.
Such unpredictable developments in foreign and
domestic affairs mean that the State Planning Committee
must keep constantly on the alert, ready to alter the
direction and the tempo of the Plan as the total situa-
tion may require. Premier Stalin has ably summed up
the matter: "The Five-Year Plan, like every plan . . .
must be changed and perfected on the basis of experience
in carrying through the Plan. No Five-Year Plan can
calculate all the potentialities which are present in our
system and which become revealed only in the process of
work and in the application of the Plan in factory, mill,
collective and State farms, in the districts, etc. Only
bureaucrats can imagine that planning is concluded
with the drafting of a plan. "5
In the actual carrying out of a Soviet Five-Year Plan
much the same machinery is used as in drawing it up.
All the planning organs, in the Ministries of the Federal
and Republican Governments, in the individual indus-
tries and trusts, in the regions and cities, down to the
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? ECONOMIC AHD CULTURAL PROGRESS
factories and farms, actively function in putting the Plan
across. They stimulate the fulfilment of the Plan in
whatever sector of the economic front they are primarily
concerned with, keep abreast from day to day with what
is actually being accomplished, and forward periodic
reports to the Planning Committee to which they are
directly responsible. The trade unions play a particularly
important part in the administration of the Plan.
In other words, the transformation of a Five-Year
Plan from a beautiful, inspiring set of blueprints into
concrete material and cultural achievement is dependent
on the rank and file of workers and farmers. And their
participation in the execution of the Plan is a matter of
conscious volition. As one of the Soviet planning experts
puts it: "It was necessary not only that the working class
as a whole should direct industry but that every individ-
ual worker should understand his part in the total scheme
of production and the connection between his own work
and that of other workers in the same or allied branches
of industry. " This points to one of the outstanding ad-
vantages of social-economic planning: that it enables
every individual in the community to see how and why
his work fits into the larger scheme of things and to feel
a significance and dignity in his job that was seldom
present before.
Socialist planning definitely implies the full use of
productive capacity and its continual development. In
putting this policy into effect it has created among the
workers a new psychology. Under capitalism the worker,
thinking over the experience of the past, is quite prone
to say to himself: "Why should I try to work harder and
produce more when I know that may bring on overpro-
duction and the loss of my job? " Or he may object strong-
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
ly to the installation of new labor-saving machinery, fear-
ing that it also will cause unemployment. In the U. S. S. R. ,
however, the workers know that increased production,
far from leading to unemployment and economic misery,
will raise the standard of living for both themselves and
everyone else -- a major reason for their entering with
enthusiasm into schemes for heightening productivity.
I have already mentioned the counter-plans, usually
proposing higher schedules, that factories and other units
may suggest to the State Planning Committee. In the
fulfilment of such counter-plans Stakhanovites, workers
who make the most effective use of tools, time and group
effort, lead the way in increasing the quantity and im-
proving the quality of production. Individual factories,
coal mines, electric power stations and trade unions
enter into "socialist competition" to do the same. "Social-
ism," writes Lenin, "does not do away with competition;
on the contrary it for the first time creates the possibility
of applying it widely, on a really mass scale; of drawing
the majority of toilers into the field of this work, where
they can really show themselves, develop their abilities
and disclose their talents, which have been an untapped
source -- trampled upon, crushed and strangled by capi-
talism. "6
And Stalin adds: "Socialist competition and capitalist
competition represent two entirely different principles.
The principle of capitalist competition is: defeat and
death for some and victory for others. The principle of
socialist competition is: comradely assistance to those
lagging behind the more advanced, with the purpose of
reaching general advancement. "7 There is plenty of com-
petition within the general framework of a cooperative
economic order: competition in doing a first-rate job for
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? ECOHOMIC AHD CULTURAL PROGRESS
the community and in climbing the ladder of achieve-
ment in socially useful ways; competition in the contri-
butions one makes to the progress of a whole people all
working together on the basis of conscious teamwork.
In the U. S. S. R. the new motivation of striving for the
social good, including one's own, has been steadily taking
the place of the old motivation of seeking to pile up
personal monetary profits. Not only education and
propaganda has been directed to bring about this change
in fundamental incentives; planning itself, through es-
tablishing general economic security and the promise of -
ultimate abundance, has been an even more effective
factor. This sort of economy makes it unnecessary for
a man to carry on a bitter struggle with others in order
to maintain himself and his family. The basic economic
functionings and relationships harmonize with and sup-
port the higher social and ethical ideals instead of brut-
ally contradicting and counteracting them. And the Five-
Year Plans give Soviet citizens something definite and
compelling to which they can devote their energies and
loyalties. In this way central planning for the nation in
general brings central planning into the activity of each
individual, pulling together the various strands of his
nature and putting a great purpose into his life.
In the United States it is a commonplace to say that
the social sciences like economics and sociology have
lagged far behind the natural sciences. Scientific plan-
ning in Soviet Russia, as represented particularly by the
State Planning Committee, means that economics and
sociology, with a huge country of continental proportions
as the arena for experimentation, are enshrined at the
very center of things; and have become, in scope, prestige
and effectiveness, the equal of the physical sciences. This
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
socialist planning, directed by experts in all the relevant
fields, does not permit the reckless squandering of natural
resources for profit or for any other purpose. It not only
conserves the priceless bequests of Nature, but expands
and increases them, as in the great river, hydroelectric
and irrigation projects now under way. *
Over the ages intelligent men have ever sought to
deepen and broaden the reach of reason in human affairs.
The Russians have gone far in advancing this goal by
instituting, in the form of central planning, integrated
social-economic thinking on a vast nation-wide scale.
Soviet socialist planning, through its coordination and
controls, attains what might be called a great Community
Mind operating on behalf of the common welfare.
3. Achievements of the Five-Year Plans
Let us now review briefly what the Five-Year Plans
have accomplished. The major goals of the First Five-
Year Plan, 1928-1932, were to establish heavy industry
and machine-building on a permanent basis, to mechanize
and socialize agriculture, and to bring about the rapid
technical training of the population. The fulfilment
of these aims was designed both to provide a solid founda-
tion for the building of socialism and to make the Soviet
Union, in case of need, independent of the capitalist
world. The Plan admittedly cost a great deal in terms of
human strain and stress, especially since the emphasis on
heavy industry entailed unprecedented savings being put
into capital investment and therefore the temporary fore-
going of consumers' goods. Accordingly, the Soviet peo-
ple tightened their belts in order that the manufacture
* See pp. 203-208.
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? ECONOMIC AND CULTURAL PROGRESS
of producers' goods such as blast furnaces and steel found-
ries, tractors and agricultural combines, hydroelectric
plants and all kinds of machinery should go forward at
top speed. Huge quantities of foodstuffs and raw mater-
ials, badly needed at home, were exported to pay for the
import of machines and the hiring of foreign technicians.
What the socialization of agriculture meant in Soviet
Russia was the merging of separate farms into large-scale
collectives (kolkhozes), each managed as a single coopera-
tive unit by the individual members and owners, who
distribute the total income on the basis of the work per-
formed by each peasant. (The average Soviet collective
farm was, as of 1939, about 1200 acres in size and con-
tained about seventy-eight households. ) Each peasant fam-
ily retains, as guaranteed by the Constitution,* the own-
ership of its own dwelling, small kitchen garden, cows,
pigs, poultry or perhaps beehives. The communal side
of the collectives chiefly involves the major aspects of
agricultural production in sowing, reaping, storing,
caring for the herds and in applying scientific methods
and machine techniques so far as possible in all such
activities. Undeniably crucial in the collectivization
program was the establishment throughout the country-
side of the Government-run Machine-and-Tractor Sta-
tions, which rent to the collective farms tractors, thresh-
ing machines and reapers; and provide technical assist-
ance or instruction for the operation of this mechanized
equipment.
Besides the collectives, the First Five-Year Plan saw
instituted thousands of huge State farms (sovkhozes),
owned outright by the Government and managed by a
special Ministry. One of their main functions has been
? See p. 55.
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
to carry on big-scale agricultural experiments. All hands
on these State farms work for regular wages and are
organized into labor unions.
There can be no shadow of doubt that collectivization
was a necessity for the advance of socialism in the Soviet
Union. The continued existence of some 25,000,000
scattered strips and peasant holdings, with primitive
implements like the wooden plough still widely in use,
meant production that was terribly inefficient, with an
extremely low yield per acre, and therefore insufficient
for the needs of a growing population and an expanding
socialist economy. The obvious solution was to combine
these innumerable small farms into two or three hundred
thousand large-scale enterprises in which the advantages
of modern machinery and planned cooperative endeavor
could be utilized. Moreover, the retention of the old
individualistic agricultural system meant the persistence
of the old individualistic psychology that went with it.
And since the peasants constituted an overwhelming pro-
portion of the population, it would very likely have
proved fatal for the new society had they gone on main-
taining an attitude antagonistic to socialism.
The campaign for collectivization during the First
Five-Year Plan met the stubborn resistance of the kulaks,
the comparatively rich peasants to whom the whole idea
of collectives was anathema. They fought the new pro-
gram in agriculture with all possible weapons, includ-
ing those of murder and arson. The Communist Govern-
ment, on its part, retaliated with severity and harshness,
deporting hundreds of thousands of the kulaks to work-
camps in the Urals and Siberia. Other groups among
the peasants, especially in the Ukraine where a separatist
movement was stirring, became disgruntled over the
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? ECOHOMIC AN? D CULTURAL PROGRESS
collectivization program. And in 1931 and 1932 the
grain crops fell to a critical level, while an enormous
number of livestock were slaughtered. During the winter
of 1933 the entire U. S. S. R. felt the effects of a serious
food shortage, which in some areas was undoubtedly
responsible for a heavy toll in malnutrition and death.
But the bad situation quickly changed for the better.
The Communists and the Government became more
moderate in their attitude and made certain compromises
to the still strongly individualistic psychology of the
peasants. The collectives themselves began to operate
more efficiently and to attract farmers by their marked
superiority to the old system. In the fall of 1933 the
country had the biggest harvest in its entire annals. By
the end of the same year two-thirds of all the peasants
in the U. S. S. R. had joined collectives numbering almost
225,000. Collectivization had won through to a great
and lasting victory. It was one of the most significant
agrarian revolutions in history; and was of invaluable
aid to the industrial program in that it ensured plenty
of food for the cities and, by effecting much labor-saving
on the farms, released millions of peasants for work in
industry.
The accomplishment of the third main goal of the
First Five-Year Plan, the mastering of twentieth-cen-
tury technique, was likewise a costly process. A large
proportion of the skilled professional class had left Russia
at the time of the 1917 Revolution; and many of those
who remained continued to be hostile to the new regime
and to sabotage its economic program whenever possible.
Hence the Soviet Government had to train a whole new
generation of socialist technicians whose efficiency and
loyalty could be counted on. This took time. It was also
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
expensive in terms of production costs. Tens of thou-
sands of unskilled workers and raw peasants, starting from
scratch to learn how to operate complicated machinery,
showed much awkwardness at first and ruined much
machinery in the course of their education. Yet in the
end the objective was largely achieved. The workers
demonstrated proficiency in the arts of modern industry.
The institutes of technical education turned out in-
creasing numbers of engineers and other specialists fully
capable of coping with the complex problems of the
machine age. And the quality of all sorts of manufac-
tured goods steadily improved.
The Second Five-Year Plan, extending from January
1, 1933, to December 31, 1937, continued in practically
every respect the advances made under the First.
The
chief differences were a greater stress on consumption
goods -- clothes, kitchen utensils, furniture, phonographs,
radios, cameras, bicycles and so on -- and a somewhat
less arduous rate of expansion. As the Second Plan pro-
gressed, the people proceeded more and more to reap
the benefits of the hard work and self-sacrifice necessi-
tated by the First. As Stalin put it in 1935, "Life has
improved, comrades. Life is more joyous. "8 Consumers'
goods, the output of which more than doubled between
1933 and the end of 1937, poured out of the factories in
vast quantities, visibly raising the standard of living in
urban and rural districts alike. Meanwhile the average
real wage went up 103 percent and labor productivity in
industry 82 percent.
The last year of the Second Five-Year Plan witnessed
the gross volume of industrial output with socialized
property accounting for 99. 8 percent of it, rise no less
than 800 percent above 1913 and attain a place among
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? ECOHOMIC AHD CULTURAL PROGRESS
the countries of the world second only to that of the
United States. We have already seen that in 1933, the
first year of the Second Five-Year Plan, collective agri-
culture became firmly established. By 1937, Soviet in-
dustry was manufacturing approximately 90 percent of
the tractors and harvester-combines used in farming;
while the proportion of collectivized peasant households
had risen to 92 percent of the total number and, together
with 4,000 State farms, covered 99 percent of the culti-
vated land. With the exception of two years when
drought conditions were widespread, the harvests con-
tinued to be bigger and bigger. Famine, which for gene-
ration after generation in the old Russia constituted the
major economic evil, had become a thing of the past.
It was also during the Second Five-Year Plan that the
new Constitution of 1936, reflecting the immense eco-
nomic and cultural progress of the preceding years, went
into effect. V. M. Molotov, at that time Premier of the
U. S. S. R. , summed up the achievements of the Plan in
typically Marxist fashion: "The chief historical task
assigned by the Second Five-Year Plan has been accom-
plished: all exploiting classes have been completely abol-
ished, and the causes giving rise to the exploitation of
man by man and to the division of society into exploiters
and exploited have been done away with for all time.
All this is primarily the result of the abolition of the
private ownership of the means of production. It is the
result of the triumph in our country of state and of co-
operative and collective-farm property, that is, socialist
property. "9
As the Third Five-Year Plan, scheduled for 1938-43,
swung into high gear, it was evident that the planned
economy was by and large succeeding and was beginning
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
to fulfil its promise of an abundant existence for the
entire population. These were indeed the "Fat Years"
for the Soviet people. When my wife and I made our
second trip to the U. S. S. R. in the spring of 1938, we
immediately noticed the great improvement over 1932
in foodstuffs, manufactured articles and the clothes which
people were wearing. Consumers' goods filled to over-
flowing the shops of Moscow and other cities, as well as
of the villages through which we wandered in the Uk-
raine. An immense amount of new construction was
going on everywhere. All the chief cities were putting
across five- or ten-year plans of reconstruction and were
erecting factories, workers' apartments, offices, hotels,
schools, theatres, stadiums and bridges.
We were struck, too, by the widespread mechanical
development. Soviet-manufactured automobiles, buses
and trucks now filled the newly macadamized streets of
the cities with quite heavy traffic. And the new Moscow
subway, with its smooth-working escalators and beautiful,
airy stations, seemed to be running with admirable
efficiency. The people themselves constantly impressed
us with their spirit of gaiety and confidence. We saw
them dancing and merry-making in the public squares;
we mingled with them in the streets and parks, at work-
ers' clubs and children's schools; we participated with
them in festivities during holidays and other occasions;
we enjoyed with them theatre and movie; opera and
ballet; we met them personally at their offices and homes,
at lunch and dinner and during special outings.
The widely circulated idea that tourists in Soviet
Russia are shown only what is sure to make a good im-
pression and are strictly kept away from everything else
is simply fantastic. My wife and I walked around alone
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? ECOHOMIC AHD CULTURAL PROGRESS
a large part of the time and observed plenty of things
that were on the seamy side, such as wretched housing
here and there, bad sanitary facilities, run-down public
buildings and spoiled food. As for our favorable impres-
sions, it is rather difficult to believe that Stalin issued a
secret decree ordering the Soviet people everywhere to
smile and look happy on our behalf, or that the bustling
economic activity and large supplies of consumers' goods
were in any sense faked for the benefit of foreign visitors.
The Third Five-Year Plan was designed to achieve
more social-economic progress than both of its predeces-
sors put together. The colossal expansion of industry was
to be continued. In the first three years of the Plan,
through 1940, the capital investment was 192 billion
rubles as compared with a total of 165 billion from 1928
to 1938 -- 51 billion for the First Five-Year Plan and
114 billion for the Second. At the same time the schedules
of the Third Five-Year Plan called for a large increase
in consumption goods and in wages, both of which by
1941 rose by a third over 1937. Labor productivity,
providing much of the growth in national income from
which higher wages were to come, went up even faster.
Yet no sooner was the Third Five-Year Plan well
under way than the shadows of war began to gather most
menacingly. The Anglo-French surrender to Hitler at
Munich took place in the fall of 1938. The Second World
War broke out a year later. And in June, 1940, France
yielded to the Nazi blitzkrieg. These tragic happenings
naturally had a heavy impact on the Soviet Union. From
the time of Munich on, the Soviet Government felt
impelled to put more and more into the defense budget
and the manufacture of armaments. When fascist ag-
gression finally engulfed the Soviet Republic in June of
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
1941, much of the Third Five-Year Plan, especially that
part of it concerned with higher living standards, was
discarded so that the energies of the nation could be con-
centrated on war production and defense.
Once more the people had to forego the rewards of
their titanic labors, postponing their richly deserved
leisure and enjoyments to a future when peace would
reign again. The hurricane that had swept Europe de-
scended upon the Russians with unparalleled fury. And
the additional tragedy for the Soviet Union was that it
was truly in sight of the promised land when Hitler's
murderous legions marched into the depths of the coun-
try carrying death, arson and destruction.
Ralph Parker, New York Times correspondent in
Moscow during the war years, wrote: "Try hard as they
can, it is well-nigh impossible for people in lands that
have not been fought over and occupied to grasp the scale
of the hardships borne by the individual Russian during
the war. Conditions had been such in the pre-war years
that very few had been able to accumulate more than the
most modest possessions, and when victory came, every-
thing had been consumed. The furniture had been used
to feed the little stoves. Schoolchildren wrote their exer-
cises in copy-books made of old newspapers. In winter,
the office-workers sat in their overcoats. Large cities like
Smolensk and Kiev were without electric light or tap
water. Over areas the size of France the factories stood
idle or in ruins. There were large farms where only
women worked. Peasants stood in markets from dawn
to dusk with three or four eggs to sell. The trains ran
ten miles an hour. With eyes smudged with fatigue,
shabby, speechless, people dragged themselves slowly to
work. "10 Mr. Parker was echoing what Winston Chur-
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? ECOHOMIC AHD CULTURAL PROGRESS
chill had said earlier: "The Russians, under their warrior
chief, Stalin, sustained losses which no other country or
government has ever borne in so short a time and lived. "11
From the moment of the Nazi invasion total planning
for total war became the order of the day. The special-
ists of the State Planning Committee one and all had
to become experts on how to mobilize the full economic
resources of the U. S. S. R. Throughout the conflict this
Committee worked closely with the special State Defense
Committee, a war cabinet of eight high-ranking Soviet
leaders, with Premier Stalin as Chairman, which took over
the full powers of government from June, 1941, to Sep-
tember, 1945. The people themselves, in locality after
locality, having learned over the years the meaning and
methods of planning, adapted their cooperative technique
to the war emergency and coordinated all efforts for
victory over the invader.
Social-economic planning went right on operating
throughout the four years of terrible warfare and, as I
have already recounted, played an indispensable part in
the ultimate defeat of Hitler. Prior to the war, that
planning had built up the economic and armed strength
of the U. S. S. R. to the point where the country could
withstand the greatest military assault ever unleashed
upon this planet. The Five-Year Plans had not only
created immense industrial facilities behind the barrier
of the Ural Mountains, but also a huge and reliable agri-
cultural reserve for the production of foodstuffs in this
same Siberian hinterland. Had it not been for this re-
serve, the nation might well have collapsed from lack
of food after the Germans had occupied the Ukraine,
traditional granary for all Russia.
As soon as, in 1943, the Red Army started to recapture
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
large sections of the Ukraine and western Russia, the
Soviet planners were on the spot to help reconstruct the
devastated regions. Declared the head of the Technical
Department of the Coal Ministry in 1943: "The earth
has not yet cooled off after the hot fighting, when the
coal experts who follow in the wake of the Red Army are
already on the job, organizing restoration of the mines. "12
The miners were back working in the pits one week after
the liberation of the vital Donbas area in the Ukraine;
and within another week newly dug coal from these
mines was reaching Moscow. During the same year the
Government launched in the liberated regions a general
program of rebuilding and restoration.
By the end of December, 1944, when it seemed that
Hitler's downfall was not far off, some industries began
to make initial preparations for peacetime production.
Almost immediately after the Nazi surrender extensive
demobilization started in the Soviet Union. Less than
a week after Japan's unconditional surrender to the Allies
on August 14, 1945, the Soviet Government and the
Communist Party called upon the State Planning Com-
mittee to make ready tentative schedules for a Fourth
Five-Year Plan. The Committee proceeded to draw up
the Plan, which was later ratified, with some revisions,
by the Supreme Soviet. It went into effect on January 1,
1946, to run through 1950.
4. Post-War Economic Gains
It was clear that the main goals of the Fourth Five-
Year Plan would have to be economic reconstruction and
reconversion. The war against Germany and Japan had
cost the Soviet Union approximately 485 billion dollars,
including total property damages of about 128 billion
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? ECOHOMIC AND CULTURAL PROGRESS
from the Nazi invasion and occupation. The Nazis de-
molished or put out of commission more than one-third
of the industrial plant existing in 1941; they destroyed
1,710 towns, 70,000 villages and hamlets, 35,000 factories
and 40,000 hospitals; and they made 25,000,000 persons
homeless.
The vast tasks of reconversion were apparent in the
fact that toward the conclusion of the war the Soviets
were manufacturing annually 40,000 airplanes, 30,000
tanks, 120,000 pieces of artillery, 450,000 machine-guns
and 5,000,000 rifles and tommy-guns. The Plan aimed
to bring back over-all production to the pre-war level of
1940 by the end of 1948; and by the end of 1950 to
achieve complete restoration in the devastated areas and
increase total production 48 percent beyond 1940. It
stressed the development of transportation by railway
and water, further electrification and the expansion of
light industries producing consumer goods such as tex-
tiles, leather and canned foodstuffs.
In December, 1947, rationing, which had been a
necessary hold-over from the war years, was totally abol-
ished; and the ruble, which had depreciated in worth
because of the war inflation, was drastically revalued.
During 1948 production in general fulfilled the Fourth
Five-Year Plan's program of reaching the pre-war level.
In 1949 most industries, as well as agriculture, surged
considerably ahead of the 1940 figures. The 1949 report
of the Central Statistical Administration included the
significant statement: "In 1949, as in preceding years,
there was no unemployment in the country. " Unfortu-
nately, due to fear of aggression and the Government's
insistence on secrecy, the Soviet authorities have con-
tinued the policy instituted in 1940 of releasing no totals
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
for actual output and giving out only percentages of
achievement and increase.
On March 1, 1950, as a result of the economic ad-
vances made in 1949, the Government effected a sweep-
ing reduction in prices on 234 different kinds of food
and consumption goods. This amounted to an average
lowering in price levels of at least 20 percent and of
course a corresponding rise in the purchasing power of
the ruble. It was the fourth general price reduction
which had taken place under the Fourth Five-Year Plan.
At the same time the Soviet Cabinet put the ruble on the
gold standard and increased its official value, in terms
of the dollar, from nineteen to twenty-five cents. This
movement strengthened the ruble both internally and as
a medium of international monetary exchange.
The Fourth Five-Year Plan as a whole was fulfilled in
four years and three months; and in its last year -- 1950
-- the total volume of Soviet industry rose 73 percent
above the level of 1940, as compared with the 48 percent
increase envisaged by the Plan. The production sched-
ules of the Plan were all exceeded in iron, steel, coal,
peat, oil, electric power, machine-building and tractors.
All the hydroelectric power stations destroyed during the
Nazi invasion were restored and many new ones built.
However, the Five-Year Plan goals were not reached for
certain types of machine equipment, for the production
of bricks and tiles, for the hauling of timber and for the
general reduction of construction costs. But in all these
categories the figures were far above those of 1940.
Soviet economists considered the repair of destroyed
railways as the most decisive task of the Fourth Five-Year
Plan. By the end of 1950 the full Plan for the restoration
and building of railroads, bridges and stations had been
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? ECOHOMIC AHD CULTURAL PROGRESS
met. Average daily loadings on the railways for 1950
amounted to 121 percent of 1940 and 103 percent of the
Plan figure. Production of locomotives rose to 4,000 per
year. The carriage of cargoes by inland water transport
increased to 26 percent above 1940, but did not fulfil
the level set by the Plan.
One of the most significant features of the Fourth
Five-Year Plan was the rapid advance in technology
throughout industry. In steel manufacturing, the use of
oxygen was generally introduced, resulting in much faster
smelting and therefore in greater productive capacities
for furnaces. In the coal industry, cutting, breaking and
hauling the coal underground, and loading it into freight
cars at the surface were largely mechanized, thus saving
much labor and easing the lot of the miner. Much atten-
tion is now being given to developing remote control
and automatic operation of mining equipment so as to
reduce to a minimum the need of underground work by
human beings. Horrifying mine explosions such as still
take place in Britain and America -- witness the one
which killed 119 miners in Illinois in December, 1951 --
have become unknown in the Soviet Union, due to
modern ventilation systems and other technical devices.
During the Fourth Five-Year Plan, in the oil industry,
the production of high-octane aviation fuel and lubricants
was expanded, and quality improved. This period also
continued a major trend, very important for Soviet de-
fense, in the geographical distribution of oil extraction.
Whereas in 1940 only 12 percent of Soviet oil came from
areas outside the Caucasus and Transcaucasus, now 44
percent is taken from territories far away from the fron-
tier, such as the Ural Mountains region and Soviet Cen-
tral Asia.
195
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